Month: April 2018

Should you jump on that opportunity? There’s a vital step that often get missed out by bidding companies… pre-qualification. In the rush to get new business at any cost a company will tend to get their bidding teams responding to each ITT (Invitation to tender) or RFP (Request for proposal) that comes their way. This …

Teachers say their pension age should be reduced to 60. They attacked plans to extend the official retirement age to 68, saying the pressures of the job would make it ‘an impossibility’ for many. Delegates at the NASUWT union’s annual conference in Birmingham voted unanimously to campaign for teachers to have a normal pension age …

The TUC says labour laws need “beefing up” to protect the rights of workers employed by outsourcing firms. The union body says such workers cannot challenge the “parent” company over minimum wage or holiday pay abuses. The TUC has called on the government to give subcontracted workers the right to challenge the end employer. The …

The opening salvos of a tariff spat between the US and China that some observers fear could escalate into a full-blown trade war sent jitters through Wall Street on Monday. Stock markets fell after Beijing hit back against Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium with a swath of retaliatory duties on …

Buying robots to take over repetitive jobs and offshoring basic tasks to foreign workers is not bad for employment in the UK – instead, it creates more and better paid jobs. Overall productivity receives a boost as relatively unproductive jobs are automated or performed more cheaply overseas, freeing up resources domestically for higher productivity work. …

China has imposed tariffs of up to 25% on 128 US imports, including pork and wine, after US President Donald Trump raised duties on foreign steel and aluminium imports in March. The tariffs affecting some $3bn (£2.1bn) of imports kick in on Monday. Beijing said the move was to safeguard China’s interests and balance losses …

A senior EU official has called for action against internet companies that harvest personal data, as Brussels prepares to move against those spreading “fake news” following the Cambridge Analytica revelations. Sir Julian King, the European commissioner for security, wants “a clear game plan” on how social media companies are allowed to operate during political campaigns …

Esther McVey said she did not think they were “lazy” but there had been a “significant decrease” in the number of teenagers working on a Saturday. She told the Daily Telegraph there had been a fall of up to 60% in the numbers of young people with weekend jobs. As a result many lacked the …

The Trump administration has said it wants to start collecting the social media history of nearly everyone seeking a visa to enter the US. The proposal, which comes from the state department, would require most visa applicants to give details of their Facebook and Twitter accounts. They would have to disclose all social media identities …

More than a fifth of manufacturing firms are planning to lay off workers to cope with the costs of Brexit, according to a survey that suggests the sector is already losing business. More than one in 10 (11%) of manufacturers say that they have already lost contracts, according to Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply …